Colonel Barré-Letter to a Brigadier-General.

109

however, the profession which had been imposed upon him, he obtained an ensigncy in the 32d foot, on the 12th of February 1746. His regiment, which was then in Flanders, returned to England in 1747; and having again gone to the Continent in 1748, it remained there till the peace of Aix la Chapelle in the same year. From 1749 to 1753, Barré was at Gibraltar; and in the years 1754, 1755, (when he was made lieutenant,) and 1756, his regiment was quartered in Scotland. In 1757, Barré left his regiment, and went out as a volunteer with the celebrated Wolfe, then Colonel of the 20th regiment, on the unsuccessful expedition to Rochefort. In order to make amends for the failure, in the same year, of Admiral Holbourne's naval expedition, Wolfe was selected by Mr. Pitt as brigadier under Sir Jeffery Amherst to make a second attack upon Louisburg, and Lieutenant Barré was again chosen to accompany him. After the capture of Louisburg, and in consequence of his ill health, Wolfe, accompanied by Barré, returned to England towards the end of 1758. Wolfe, with the rank of major-general, and Barré, who had been made major of brigade, were appointed to the famous expedition against Quebec-Wolfe to have the special command of it in co-operation with Sir Jeffery Amherst. The expedition set sail in February 1759, Monckton, Townshend, (afterwards Lord Townshend,) and Murray being the brigadiergenerals, and Major Barré adjutant-general. The last despatch written by Wolfe "was ascribed by the current report of the army to Major Barré," and part of it is given by Mr. Britton as a specimen of the style" which, however, does not present the slightest resemblance to that of Junius. On the 13th of September, Wolfe fell on the plains of Abraham; the French General Montcalm shared the same fate; Barré was severely wounded in the eye and head; Monckton, the second in command, was disabled; and hence the honour of transmitting an account of the victory to England, and the command of the army, devolved, for a short period, on Brigadier-General Townshend. Colonel Hale bore his despatches to England, an honour which would have been conferred on Major Barré had Wolfe recovered.

66

From New York, to which Barré and his wounded comrade Colonel Carleton had gone, the former addressed a letter to Mr. Pitt, (Lord Chatham,) dated 28th April 1760, detailing the events of his professional career, and asking that preferment which would have fallen to his share had he borne to England the despatches of his General. On the ground that "senior officers would be injured by his promotion," his request was refused. This refusal of promotion, Mr. Britton justly enough connects with a very remarkable letter, printed and published in

London between June and October 1760, inveighing in eloquent, severe, and satirical periods, against the conduct of General Townshend, as the successor of Wolfe in the command of the Quebec expedition. This pamphlet, which we have placed in the list of works at the head of this Article, excited much interest at the time of its publication, and led to a hostile meeting, prevented by the arrest of the parties, between Townshend and the Earl of Albemarle, who was suspected of having instigated or employed an anonymous author to traduce the General.* This letter has a stronger resemblance to the letters of Junius than any other compositions that have been compared with them, and it possesses a double interest as a new feature in the controversy, because it could not have been written in imitation of Junius. A writer in the Gentleman's Magazine for 1817, who had seen only a few extracts from the letter in question, was so struck with this similarity of style, that he expressed it as his " strong opinion," "that if the author of the letter to a Brigadier-General should be known, it would be no difficult task to set at rest the enquiry after the author of the Letters of Junius." In the year 1840, the same letter came under the notice of Mr. N. W. Simons of the British Museum, and so "close was the resemblance" which it bore "to the style and composition of Junius," that upon referring it as well to some friends as to other gentlemen of impartiality and judgment, the unhesitating opinion of all was, that the pamphlet and the Letters of Junius were by the same hand. Mr. Simons' little volume contains a well written and judicious introduction to the pamphlet, and to "a Refutation of it by an Officer," and it concludes with an Appendix of 30 pages, in which "he gives the parallel passages from the pamphlet and from the letters of Junius, with illustrative notes.† "This letter," says Mr. Simons, "was written, if not by a soldier, at all events by a person skilled in military affairs. In style, phraseology, and matter; in sarcastic irony, bold interrogation, stinging sarcasm, and severe personalities; in frequent taunts of treachery, desertion, and cowardice, it so closely resembles the compositions of Junius, that the identity of their authorship scarcely admits of a doubt. Several passages in it evince also that strong prejudice against the Scotch which is another characteristic of Junius." ‡

*

Correspondence of Horace Walpole, vol. ii. p. 202.

* *

+A writer in the Gentleman's Magazine for July 1843, informs us that an individual, then recently deceased, who had merely seen extracts from the Letter to the Brigadier-General, had not only come to the same conclusion with Mr. Simons respecting the identity between its author and Junius, but had, previously to the illness of which he died, begun to prepare for the press a statement of his opinion. The references in Mr. Simons' volume, are to the second edition of Woodfall's Junius.

Duel between General Townshend and Lord Albemarle. 111

The identity of the pamphleteer and Junius being thus almost established, Mr. Britton does not hesitate to ascribe the letter to Barré, who was the friend of Wolfe, and therefore the enemy of General Townshend. The only conclusion which we think legitimate is that it was written by some individual who accompanied the expedition, and this seems to have been the opinion of the officer who wrote the " Refutation" when he says-" But where has this pamphleteer been to find himself under the necessity of quoting this letter? He must not have been in England surely, or must not have read the public papers," &c. If it was written by Barré, it must have been written in America, as he did not reach England till the 5th October 1760, when he brought home the despatches which gave an account of the surrender of Montreal and the subjection of Canada; and if it was written in America, and was the production of Junius, then it necessarily follows that of all the claimants to the name of Junius, Barré and Macleane, who alone were at the siege of Quebec, are the only individuals entitled to that honour.

We have already alluded to the hostile meeting between General Townshend and Lord Albemarle, and to the suspicion in which it originated, that Lord Albemarle had prompted the composition of the Letters. The officer who writes the "Refutation," seems to refer to this when he says " The sneer at the militia, in whose institution General Townshend had so principal a hand, betrays the sore part of the writer and his PATRON." If Lord Albemarle, therefore, was the patron or the person who employed the pamphleteer, Mr. Britton should have tried to point out the connexion between his Lordship and Colonel Barré.

On the 8th of October, three days after his return from America, Barré expressed himself" as bound in the highest gratitude to Mr. Pitt for the attention he had received," but it was not till the 29th January 1761 that he received his commission as Lieutenant-colonel of the army.

It was at this time that Colonel Barré became acquainted with the Earl of Shelburne, who had succeeded to his father in May 1761. A few months after this Mr. Pitt resigned, and Lord Shelburne joined the ministry of the Earl of Bute. On the 17th October Colonel Barré received a "letter of service" to raise, as "Colonel proprietor," the 106th regiment of foot, and on the 28th of November he was elected member of parliament for Chipping Wycombe, in place of Lord Shelburne. He had scarcely been three days in the House before he made an assault upon Mr. Pitt so violent that the Earl of Bath characterized it as "a rude and foul-mouthed attack," and Sir Andrew Mitchel, in a letter to a friend, gives the following account of what he calls "Colonel Barré's Philippic." Talking of the manner of

Mr. Pitt's speaking, he said—" There he would stand turning up his eyes to heaven that witnessed his perjuries, and laying his hand in a solemn manner on the table-that sacrilegious hand that had been employed in tearing out the bowels of his mother country."

In the reduction of the army, which followed the peace of 1762, Barre's regiment was disbanded, and on the 8th March 1763 he received compensation for his loss by the lucrative appointment of Adjutant-general to the army. When George Grenville became Premier on the retirement of Lord Bute, Lord Shelburne came into office as First Lord of the Board of Trade, and on the 14th May Barré was appointed Governor of Stirling Castle, which, with his other emoluments, yielded him an income of £4000 a year. On the resignation of Lord Shelburne, the Duke of Bedford entered George Grenville's administration, and when Barré joined the opposition along with his patron, he was on the 7th December 1763 deprived of the lucrative offices of Adjutant-general and Governor of Stirling Castle, while Lord Shelburne was dismissed from the place of Aide-de-camp to the king.

In the summer of 1765 the ministry of George Grenville terminated, and was succeeded by that of the Marquis of Rockingham, which did not last more than a year. Mr. Pitt was induced at the earnest solicitation of the king to form a ministry, and on the 27th of July 1766, His Majesty signed the warrant for creating him Earl of Chatham. He accordingly took his seat in the House of Lords with the office of Lord Privy Seal. The Duke of Grafton was first Lord of the Treasury, General Conway was continued as Secretary of State, and Lord Shelburne as Secretary of State for the southern department, his friend Colonel Barré being appointed one of the Vice-treasurers of Ireland, vacant by the retirement of Mr. Welbore Ellis, and at the same time a Member of the Privy Council; Lord Rockingham was made President of the Council; Lord Camden, Lord Chancellor; and Charles Townshend, Chancellor of the Exchequer. On the 12th of August 1767, on the resignation of the Earl of Bristol, Lord George Townshend kissed hands as Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, thus forming a part of the administration to which Lord Shelburne and Colonel Barré belonged, and which continued in power till the 21st of October 1768, when Chatham, Shelburne, and Barré retired from office.

Previous to this date, and between the 28th April 1767 and the 19th October 1768, there appeared in the Public Advertiser a series of no fewer than forty-eight letters, which have been published by Woodfall, under the name of the Miscellaneous Letters of Junius, and confidently ascribed to the pen of that

Miscellaneous Letters-Barré's Offices and Pension. 113

distinguished writer. These letters are filled with such virulent abuse of Lord Chatham and Lord Shelburne, individuals to whom the real Junius was deeply attached, and whom he invariably praised, that it is impossible to regard them as of his composition, without viewing him as one of the most degraded of men. Mr. Woodfall has adduced no satisfactory evidence to prove that they are genuine, and even if in point of style they had approached to that of Junius, the sentiments and views which they advocate frequently stand in diametrical opposition to his. Believing, or rather presuming, that the Miscellaneous Letters are genuine, Mr. Britton is compelled to regard them as the production of Colonel Barré, and to assign a variety of very trivial reasons in favour of so extraordinary an opinion. That Barré should thus attack the Government under which he held high and lucrative offices-that he should vilify his generous friend and patron the Earl of Shelburne-that he should abuse Lord Chatham who appointed him vice-treasurer of Ireland, and of whom he professed to entertain the most exalted opinion *— that he should abuse Lord Townshend to whose wife he left the whole of his property-that he should do all this is utterly incredible, and what never can command the assent of

sonable man.

any rea

At the time when Junius ceased to write, Mr. Britton has pointed out no event in Colonel Barré's history which can afford any explanation of so remarkable a fact. He continued in his career of opposition to the Government of Lord North from 1773 to 1782, and it is quite unaccountable that such a man, were he Junius, could have preserved silence as a public censor, during those disastrous events which he reprobated with such animation within the walls of St. Stephen's. When Lord North's ministry was dissolved on the 20th March 1782, Lord Rockingham availed himself of the talents of Lord Shelburne as Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, and of Colonel Barré as Treasurer of the Navy. In consequence of the sudden death of the Premier, in the course of three months, Lord Shelburne was appointed his successor, and Barré was raised to the lucrative office of Paymaster to the Forces. After concluding peace with America, and recognising its independence, events which illustrated his short administration, Lord Shelburne was forced to resign, in consequence of the extraordinary coalition between Mr. Fox and Lord North; and Barré, his faithful Achates, followed him into private life, with a pension of £3200 a year, which had been secured to him

*See Junius' two genuine letters to Lord Chatham, dated January 2, 1768, and January 14, 1772, published in Chatham's Correspondence, vol. iii. p. 32, and vol. iv. p. 190.

VOL. X.

NO. XIX.

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